Wednesday, August 14, 2013

The Stately Drag Queens Of The Portland Museum Of Art




From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin

Sometimes a man is hard-pressed to tell a story, to tell a story about things that he only learned about later in life, learned about haphazardly and in some senses in an abstract way, in an abstract right way but abstract nevertheless. Learned some things which his experience, his life experience, is ill-suited for him to try to make sense out of, to try to fit in human language emotions of which he is only distantly capable of conveying, yet is compelled to convey. The story to be conveyed here is such a story and concerns my old growing up friend, Jason Barnes, from Olde Saco, that is up in Maine, coastal Maine for those heathens who want to know, about twenty miles or so from scene of the action here, the Portland Museum of Art located over on Congress Street in that benighted city. Yah, Jason Barnes’ saga is such a story about a man’s abstract knowledge limitations and while it would be better for him to tell it, and maybe he will some day when he reflects on what I say here, it is left to this old scribbler to give his take on the matter as it was explained to him by Jason one night not long ago.

I had not seen Jason for a while, maybe three or four years, until he rang me up one afternoon once he found out from a mutual friend of ours from the Olde Saco days that I had retired from the publishing industry and had moved from the bustle and traffic of Cambridge back up to Ocean City not far from where we grew up (although it might as well be a million planets away from the old Acre projects where we came of age. Since Jason now resides in Kennebunk , also a short distance from Olde Saco, it was an easy fit to meet up at one of our old drinking holes, the Dew Drop Inn in ocean-side Olde Saco, one late afternoon where we in our youth had many a time unloaded many a hard-pressed dollar trying to drink ourselves into some form of salvation, mine from constant women troubles, and he not from those particular woes but others, others unknown to me at the time but certainly did not concern women. After a few drinks, the old whiskey and water of our youth still the drink of choice except now we drank from the high-shelf rather than house whiskey or what passed for whiskey then, he laid out his story, not to seek pity or redress or anything like that but just to tell it, and to ask for some commiseration if not understanding. Commiseration he got that day, the bonds that we could draw on of that emotion going back to boyhood 1950s times in the old Acre projects where we breathed our first.

Now I have to tell you some things about Jason, some things related to the story even though it is going to raise hell with the flow of what he had to say and how I would really want to present what he had to say. It will go a long way to explaining why he got commiseration that late Dew Drop Inn afternoon although not understanding. Like I said Jason and I were thick as thieves from first grade at Olde Saco South Elementary School located in that housing project that I mentioned before and that everybody in town called the Acre (whether to signify Hell’s Acre or God’s Little Acre was, is, a subject for dispute) all the way through high school. We had our share of run-ins with authority, first teachers and parents, later cops and judges. We also had our share, or so it seemed at the time, of successes and failures with girls, the young women who were forever a mystery then (and now).

On that last matter it was frankly all a sham on Jason’s part though. A crying out loud sham, although he didn’t know it at the time, at the time when he was grabbing every stray girl on the beach, the ballroom or Jimmy Jakes’ Diner (the one on Main Street no the one on Atlantic Avenue that catered to the tourists, the French-Canadian tourist who swamped the place in summer making it an outpost of old Quebec), nor how to express it, or how to proceed on his feelings in that benighted 1950s old time French- Canadian Roman Catholic-drenched working class town. See, and this I did not know until many years later when he shocked me with the news after he told me he had been arrested in New York City on Christopher Street in 1969 during what later became known as the Stonewall Rebellion, Jason was gay (or to use the terms of the times and which he used to describe himself then, a fag, queer, a homosexual, although he did not use the term homo).

And Jason said that had always had those feelings from when he was a young boy, a young boy sifting through his mother’s bureau drawers touching her womanly things, getting an unnamable excitement from the rustle of silk and cotton. (Although truth to tell I also did the same things, the same no idea what made women different from men thing except the feeling was not to endure for long). We were both adults at the time of his “coming out” and I certainly knew of homosexual activities (and knew how to say fag, queer and homo, as well as dyke and lessie with the best of them), or had heard about them from others I knew in the newspaper world who were so inclined. But not Jason, not Jason who had a wife and two young children whom he adored and who adored him. Impossible.

It took me a long while, a very long while, to comprehend that hard fact, that he had suppressed his real feelings, had done what was “normal”for the sake of appearance and for the sake of his parents and siblings, had done what was the right thing to cover for the wrong things that he began to investigate, secretly, very secretly began to investigate not long after we left high school. It wasn’t until sometime later when I asked him why he had never “hit” on me, or gave me any overt expression of what he was feeling he said, I, kind of bookish, kind of full of a guy full himself, and kind of scrawny, was not his type, his type being muscle beach boys then. He made me laugh when he said he would watch the muscle guys that did their work-outs on Olde Saco Beach every summer and figure that they were the essence of manliness not realizing that many of those brethren were as gay as he was. In any case later, later when he began to act on his desires he actually favored bookish guys, although he had no taste for scrawny ones. With that remark, after the laughter settled down, we were undying friends again.

So with that information out of the way we can proceed with what Jason told me that barroom afternoon, told me about himself more that I had heard about before in order to understand why he was upset by what happened at the art museum. Sometime after Jason “discovered” who he really was, and acted on it by divorcing his wife and moving to the Soho district down in New York City just before it became the big arty place to be he had a further identity crisis. Or rather exploring his sexuality further than he had done previously, previously when he was keeping himself deep in the closet and having to spend all his emotional and physical energy on keeping that hard lid on, he found that he really did like that old time feeling he got when he put on his mother’s garments (and later, in deep secret, his wife’s things on occasion). He didn’t believe he was a woman necessarily but he knew that he felt more than just being a gay man. So he started to hang out at the High Hat Club, a joint off of Soho where there were nightly drag queen performances. You know some big burly guy dressing up and performing Mae West or some blonde, and making the boys tittle. Harmless stuff really, and nobody’s business.

One night though, a slow Monday night Jason thought, they had what we now call an “open mic” at the club and for three dollars you could dress up and go up and strut your stuff, and see if the boys were tittled. Now I know this “open mic” stuff from other milieus, the ever ready folkies filling up local coffeehouses with their plainsong plea, comedy clubs looking for fresh talent, poetry slams and so on but I was never hip to the drag queen scene and how they discovered new talent. All I knew was that at the end of Olde Saco Beach, down the far end, the very end there used to be a club my mother (and if I recall Jason’s too) warned us against, the Rock Haven, an old converted boat where female impersonators did their thing.
So this one night Jason decided to strut his stuff. He gave more details that I needed to know about the arts of breast enhancement, leg and face shaving, and the terrible problems with make-up worthy of some of the women I have known but this not about the trials and tribulations of drag queens as such so I will not proceed further along that course. I don’t know if he had a boyfriend at the time, a steady guy anyway, but he went on stage that night and did a smoky version of jazz-singer Peggy Lee’s Cry Me A River. The boys went wild, went crazy and he had more dates than he could handle for a while. Moreover he turned that night’s performance into an act at the club for the next several years, a paying act, which provided him, along with generous boyfriends, mainly older, with enough to live on for a while.

The problem though like with all women is that once the aging process starts, starts its inevitable toll the boys were looking for fresh meat, fresh songs and fresh daisies. Jason also said he was tired of the scene, more so after many, too many friends contracted AIDS and so he went back to his profession, his trained profession as an architect for a firm outside of Boston. And so he did that and still does that kind of work, lives a quiet life with his lover and husband, Gus (husband of late once the good citizens of Maine finally got it right on the same-sex marriage question). A good solid citizen of the Pine Tree state and still is.
But what got Jason so upset, so knotted up that he had to tell Joshua Breslin of his incident at the art museum. Well, here is the way he told it to me. He had wanted to see the travelling exhibit from the Museum of Modern Art, the Payson Collection of mainly modern art so he went there one weekday to do so. While viewing Pablo Picasso’s Boy With A Horse he noticed that an older woman, a woman dressed rather shabbily, no, rather haphazardly with a hat popular in about 1956 that did not go with her outfit, a jacket that did not match with her skirt, and wearing sneakers, New Balance, topped off by huge ill-fitting glasses and some almost ghoulish make-up that did nothing for her was watching him intensely. A mess thought Jason at first and second glance. Now this is important because even as a kid Jason had a feline, well let’s call it a feline, sense of style, even if he, we, couldn’t do anything about it, not having two dimes to rub together most days. So this woman’s look offended his sense of order but he let it pass.

While Jason was viewing a Matisse though he noticed this old shipwreck was staring at him again, staring closely, and did so for a couple of minutes. Then this wreck yelled out “Peggy, Peggy Lee, it’s me Judy Garland,” Jason shrank for he knew very well the reference could only be directed at him, and only by someone who knew him from New York City in the old days, his old drag queen days. And he knew further that “Judy Garland” was none other than Dick Jones (aka Rita Jones, and several other names as well, girl’s names of course) whom he worked with (and competed, furiously competed with, as they all did for those boy titters) at various location in that city. So Jason knew, despite all caution that he needed to talk to her, talk quickly and quietly.

The upshot of the whole thing was that the shipwreck, let’s call her Judy to keep things straight, was in town for one day, one night really, doing her Judy act down at the Sandbar Club. Jesus, Jason thought don’t old queens know enough to give it up. He also could not imagine the clientele that would pay, pay good money or bad, to see a sixty-something drag queen under any circumstances. Jason had the good sense to stop performing before he wound up in some such circumstances. And that is really why Jason wanted to discuss this whole thing with me, me rather than Gus, who would have been nonplussed by the whole thing. Besides Jason really wanted to talk about getting old, about our getting old, and not about the stately if faded drag queens of the art museum. He said seeing Judy made him for the first time feel old. Welcome aboard, brother. But get this- every time I think about the image of that faded drag queen waiting for the other shoe to drop I finally realized why I could only commiserate with Jason and not show understanding. Jesus.


*A Look At The Racial Fault Line In America- Studs Terkel Style



Division Street Revisited- Stud Terkel’s America

BOOK REVIEW

Division Street: America, Studs Terkel, The New Press, New York, 2004


As I have done on other occasion when I am reviewing more than one work by an author I am using some of the same comments, where they are pertinent, here as I did in earlier reviews. In this series the first Studs Terkel book reviewed was that of his “The Good War”: an Oral History of World War II.

Strangely, as I found out about the recent death of long time pro-working class journalist and general truth-teller "Studs" Terkel I was just beginning to read his "The Good War", about the lives and experiences of, mainly, ordinary people during World War II in America and elsewhere, for review in this space. As with other authors once I get started I tend to like to review several works that are relevant to see where their work goes. In the present case the review, his first serious effort at plebeian oral history, Division Street: America, despite the metaphorically nature of that title, focuses on a serves a narrower milieu, his “Sweet Home, Chicago” and more local concerns than his later works.

Mainly, this oral history is Studs’ effort to reflect on the lives of working people (circa 1970 here but the relevant points could be articulated, as well, in 2008) from Studs’ own generation who survived that event, fought World War II and did or did not benefit from the fact of American military victory and world economic preeminence, including those blacks and mountain whites who made the internal migratory trek from the South to the North. Moreover, this book presents the first telltale signs that those defining events for that generation were not unalloyed gold. As channeled through the most important interviewee in this book, Frances Scala, who led an unsuccessful but important 1960’s fight against indiscriminate “urban renewal” of her neighborhood (the old Hull House of Jane Addams fame area) Studs make his argument that the sense of social solidarity, in many cases virtually necessary for survival, was eroding.

Studs includes other stories, including the lumpen proletarian extraordinaire Kid Pharaoh who will be met later in Hard Times and the atypical Chicago character who gladly joins the John Birch Society in order to assert his manhood, who do not easily fit into any of those patterns but who nevertheless have stories to tell. And grievances, just, unjust or whimsical, to spill.

One thing that I noticed immediately after reading this book, and as is true of the majority of Terkel’s interview books, is that he is not the dominant presence but is a rather light, if intensely interested, interloper in these stories. For better or worse the interviewees get to tell their stories, unchained. In this age of 24/7 media coverage with every half-baked journalist or wannabe interjecting his or her personality into somebody else’s story this was, and is, rather refreshing. Of course this journalistic virtue does not mean that Studs did not have control over who got to tell their stories and who didn’t to fit his preoccupations and sense of order. He has a point he wants to make and that is that although most “ordinary” people do not make the history books they certainly make history, if not always of their own accord or to their own liking. Again, kudos and adieu Studs.
*Studs Terkel's- Busted Dreams of Working America


BOOK REVIEWS

American Dreams: Lost and Found, Studs Terkel, The New Press, New York, 2004

As I have done on other occasion when I am reviewing more than one work by an author I am using some of the same comments, where they are pertinent, as I did in earlier reviews. In this series the first Studs Terkel book reviewed was that of his “The Good War: an Oral History of World War II".

Strangely, as I found out about the recent death of long time pro-working class journalist and general truth-teller "Studs" Terkel I was just beginning to read his "The Good War", about the lives and experiences of, mainly, ordinary people during World War II in America and elsewhere, for review in this space. As with other authors once I get started I tend to like to review several works that are relevant to see where their work goes. In the present case the review of American Dreams: Lost And Found serves a dual purpose.

First, to reflect on the lives of working people (circa 1980 here but the relevant points could be articulated, as well, in 2008): the recent arrivals to these shores hungry to seek the “streets of gold”; those Native Americans, as exemplified in Vince DeLoria’s story, whose ancestors precede our own and who continue to bring up the rear; those blacks and mountain whites who made the internal migratory trek from the South and, in some cases, found more in common than in difference; and, others who do not easily fit into any of those patterns but who nevertheless have stories to tell. And grievances, just, unjust or whimsical, to spill. Secondly, always hovering in the background is one of Studs’ preoccupations- the fate of his generation- ‘so-called “greatest generation”. Those stories, as told here, are certainly a mixed bag. Thus, there is no little irony in the title of this oral history.

One thing that I noticed immediately after reading this book, and as is true of the majority of Terkel’s interview books, is that he is not the dominant presence but is a rather light, if intensely interested, interloper in these stories. For better or worse the interviewees get to tell their stories, unchained. In this age of 24/7 media coverage with every half-baked journalist or wannabe interjecting his or her personality into somebody else’s story this was, and is, rather refreshing. Of course this journalistic virtue does not mean that Studs did not have control over who got to tell their stories and who didn’t to fit his preoccupations and sense of order. He has a point he wants to make and that is that although most “ordinary” people do not make the history books they certainly make history, if not always of their own accord or to their own liking. Again, kudos and adieu Studs.
Studs Terkel's "Working People"- The Classic Modern Look




BOOK REVIEW

Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day And How They Feel About What They Do, Studs Terkel, The New Press, New York, 2004


As I have done on other occasions when I am reviewing more than one work by an author I am using some of the same comments, where they are pertinent, here as I did in earlier reviews. In this series the first Studs Terkel book reviewed was that of his “The Good War”: an Oral History of World War II".

Strangely, as I found out about the recent death of long time pro-working class journalist and general truth-teller "Studs" Terkel I was just beginning to read his "The Good War", about the lives and experiences of, mainly, ordinary people during World War II in America and elsewhere, for review in this space. As with other authors once I get started I tend to like to review several works that are relevant to see where their work goes. In the present case the review of Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day And How They Feel About What They Do serves to reflect on a time a couple of decades ago when people may have been resigned about their working career but had a feeling that it did not express all of what they were. Given today’s uncertain economic climate and the wider fears about the effects of the long term trend “globalization” which particularly threatens many lower- skilled or easily transferable jobs I am not sure that such interesting reflections on their work experiences would be forthcoming from today’s working population.

Although Terkel has cast a wide net on the range of occupations and types of work that he presents here it is weighted toward blue collar working people: the waitresses, bartenders, service personnel and the like with whom he had such affinity. The most interesting aspect of this effort is that almost universally the work that people do does not reflect on their capacities. In short, the job is not the measure of the person. That said, I believe, intentionally or not, this little treasure trove of interviews is one of the great arguments for socialism: the creation of a society where an energetic waitress or a well-read steelworker, for example, could break out and become a leader of society. A place where every cook can take a turn at governing. That is the real message that these interviewees are trying, unsuccessfully for the most part, to articulate. How to successfully do that, however, is a separate and frustratingly hard political and organizational question that I have argues about elsewhere.

One thing that I noticed immediately after reading this book, and as is true of the majority of Terkel’s interview books, is that he is not the dominant presence but is a rather light, if intensely interested, interloper in these stories. For better or worse the interviewees get to tell their stories, unchained. In this age of 24/7 media coverage with every half-baked journalist or wannabe interjecting his or her personality into somebody else’s story this was, and is, rather refreshing. Of course this journalistic virtue does not mean that Studs did not have control over who got to tell their stories and who didn’t to fit his preoccupations and sense of order. He has a point he wants to make and that is that although most “ordinary” people do not make the history books they certainly make history, if not always of their own accord or to their own liking. Again, kudos and adieu Studs.

Update 8/12/13: Delivering 100,000 Nobel Peace Prize petitions, and what about the Nuremberg charter?

iam
Supporters at an early morning vigil at Fort Meade prior to the defense beginning its sentencing arguments.
Paul Jay and Vijay Prashad discuss the Nuremberg charter, an international agreement signed 68 years ago, which holds soldiers accountable for war crimes, regardless of whether or not they have been ordered to commit the said crimes by their government. The charter creates an international law that demands soldiers act on and report atrocities they witness:
The war in Iraq was illegal, according to most legal scholars I’ve heard, including Kofi Annan, who, unfortunately, didn’t really come out and say it until after he left United Nations, but he said it. An illegal war, invading a country is a war crime. If Bradley Manning sees atrocities committed in the course of a war crime, it’s not just some choice he made. It’s not just a moral obligation. Under international law, he actually had a legal obligation, and certainly a defense, for doing what he did. (Read more…)
manningnobel3More than 100,000 people signed the petition to award Bradley Manning the Nobel Peace Prize, and today Norman Soloman will meet with the Director of the Nobel Research committee to urge them to consider the heroic selfless actions of 3 time Nobel Peace Prize nominee Bradley Manning:
This afternoon I’ll carry several thousand pages of a petition — filled with the names of more than 100,000 signers, along with individual comments from tens of thousands of them – to an appointment with the Research Director of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. The petition urges that Bradley Manning be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Like so many other people, the signers share the belief of Nobel Peace laureate Mairead Corrigan-Maguire who wrote this summer: “I can think of no one more deserving.” (Read more…)

Supervisor’s failure to help Bradley Manning; more unit witnesses: trial report, day 33

By Nathan Fuller, Bradley Manning Support Network. August 13, 2013.
Paul David Adkins, drawn by Clark Stoeckley.
Paul David Adkins, drawn by Clark Stoeckley.
Former Master Sergeant Paul David Adkins testified for the longest stretch of this morning’s sentencing hearing for Pfc. Bradley Manning, attempting to justify his deficient response to several incidents that should’ve warranted further attention.
Manning sent Adkins an email titled “My Problem,” with an attached photo of Manning dressed in a wig and makeup. It began,
This is my problem. I’ve had signs of it for a very long time. It’s caused problems within my family. I thought a career in the military would get rid of it. It’s not something I seek out for attention, and I’ve been trying very, very hard to get rid of it by placing myself in situations where it would be impossible. But, it’s not going away; it’s haunting me more and more as I get older. Now, the consequences of it are dire, at a time when it’s causing me great pain it itself.
Adkins referenced the email to mental health professionals but didn’t explain its contents, and he didn’t take the matter to his commander.
In a December 2009 counseling session with Sgt. Daniel Padgett, Manning flipped over a desk, sending government computers crashing to the floor. Chief Warrant Officer Joshua Ehersman testified this morning that Manning then gestured toward the weapon rack, so Ehersman restrained him in a Full Nelson hold. Adkins was informed of the matter but again didn’t tell his company commander.
In perhaps the most troubling incident, Adkins came upon Manning curled up in a ball on the floor of a supply room, with a knife beside him on the floor. He had carved the words “I want” onto the chair next to him. Adkins said he calmed Manning down but didn’t take him to see anyone.
“Why wouldn’t you take him to mental health immediately?” asked defense lawyer David Coombs. Adkins couldn’t explain.
Instead of taking him to a doctor, Adkins simply sent him back to work, as “there was stuff to do.” Clearly not “calm,” Manning punched Specialist Jihrleah Showman later in that work shift.
Adkins was reprimanded and ultimately reduced in rank for his failures to respond to these incidents. CW2 Kyle Balonek, who expected to be supervising intelligence analysts, testified this morning that Adkins “circumvented” him when handling soldiers’ issues.
Coombs had Adkins, who still appears to be suffering from ‘memory loss’ that none of his former colleagues could confirm, reread his own statements in which he said that he was “unsure” of Manning was a “threat to himself” and that he was a “constant source of concern.” He asked Adkins why he didn’t remove Manning from the Secret Compartmentalized Information Facility (SCIF) if that was the case, and Adkins said that doing so would have removed his second Shi’a analyst. He would’ve had to move CW2 Balonek over to the night shift, reducing the unit’s “abilities to analyze and assess the biggest threat by a third.”
15 “Red flags” ignored
Lillian Smith, the government-appointed subject matter expert on information assurance for the defense team, testified about her review of the Army CID’s initial investigation into Bradley Manning’s disclosures, the 15-6 investigation into the unit failures that led up to the disclosures, and the Article 32 pretrial hearing in December 2011.
Smith identified 15 “red flags” that should have alerted Manning’s superiors that he might not be “suitable” to receive or maintain his security clearance, dating as far back as his Advanced Individual Training in 2008, all the way up to the incidents that Adkins failed to address.
Manning picked on in Iraq
Sheri Walsh, a brigade legal soldier, befriended Manning over the course of their deployment in Iraq. She often invited him to eat with her and over time, they began to talk at some length. She testified about fellow soldiers picking on him, including an incident in which one soldier punched a door to hit Manning in the face.
Lorena DeFrank (formerly Lorena Cooley) testified that she had referred to Manning as the “runt” of their unit, as he was physically the smallest.
DeFrank testified that Manning liked to talk about politics with her, and that after their mid-tour leave in early 2010, Manning had asked her to look at an Apache video (Collateral Murder). In April 2010, she said she overheard him in a Skype conversation, in which he expressed concern about public opinion in the United States.
Bradley to take the stand tomorrow
David Coombs confirmed after court that Manning will take the stand tomorrow – it will be up to Manning whether he testifies as a witness or whether he gives an unsworn statement that cannot be cross-examined
Petition: President Barack Obama Pardon Private Bradley Manning
 

 
The presidential power to pardon is granted under Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution:


“The President…shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in case of impeachment.”


In federal cases, and military court-martials such as Private Bradley Manning’s are federal cases, the President of the United States can, under authority granted by the U.S. Constitution as stated above, pardon the guilty and the innocent, the convicted and those awaiting trial. Now that Bradley Manning has been found guilty of 19 charges and is subject to up to 90 years in prison, probably at Fort Leavenworth, this pardon campaign is more necessary than ever. The man who spoke truth to power about atrocities committed by American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan and revealed the perfidious depths of American foreign policy should spend not one more day in the hands of the American government. Free Our Brother! Free Bradley Manning! Free the heroic Wikileaks whistleblower!

 
You can also call (Comments”202-456-1111), write The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20500, e-mail-(http://www.whitehouse.gov’contact/submitquestions-and comments) the White House to demand President Obama pardon Bradley Manning.

Name                                                  E-Mail Address  _______________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________

Begin a petition campaign to Pardon Bradley Manning with a form like this

***************

Also as the Bradley Manning trial is winding down and sentencing is impending everyone should help by doing the following:

Call (202) 685-2900-The military is pulling out all the stops to chill efforts to increase transparency in our government. Now, we’re asking you to join us to ensure we’re doing all we can to secure Bradley’s freedom as well as protection for future whistleblowers.

Major General Jeffery S. Buchanan is the Convening Authority for Bradley’s court martial, which means that he has the authority to decrease Bradley’s sentence, no matter what the judge decides. As hundreds of activists join us in DC today to demonstrate at Maj. Gen. Buchanan’s base, Ft. McNair, we’re asking you to join our action demanding he do the right thing by calling, faxing, and e-mailing his Public Affairs Office.

 

The convening authority can reduce the sentence after the Judge makes her ruling.

 

Let’s Remind Maj. General Buchanan:

  • that Bradley was held for nearly a year in abusive solitary confinement, which the UN torture chief called “cruel, inhuman, and degrading”
  • that President Obama has unlawfully influenced the trial with his declaration of Bradley Manning’s guilt.
  • that the media has been continually blocked from transcripts and documents related to the trial and that it has only been through the efforts of Bradley Manning’s supporters that any transcripts exist.
  • that under the UCMJ a soldier has the right to a speedy trial and that it was unconscionable to wait 3 years before starting the court martial.
  • that absolutely no one was harmed by the release of documents that exposed war crimes, unnecessary secrecy and disturbing foreign policy.
  • that Bradley Manning is a hero who did the right thing when he revealed truth about wars that had been based on lies.

Remind General Buchanan that Bradley Manning’s rights have been trampled – Enough is enough!

 

Please help us reach all these important contacts: Adrienne Combs, Deputy Officer Public Affairs (202) 685-2900 adrienne.m.combs.civ@mail.mil

 Col. Michelle Martin-Hing, Public Affairs Officer (202) 685-4899 michelle.l.martinhing.mil@mail.mil The Public Affairs Office fax #: 202-685-0706

Try e-mailing Maj. Gen. Buchanan at jeffrey.s.buchanan@us.army.mil

The Public Affairs Office is required to report up the chain of command the number of calls they receive on a particular issue, so please help us flood the office with support for whistleblower Bradley Manning today!

*********

 
Let’s Redouble Our Efforts To Free Private Bradley Manning-President Obama Pardon Bradley Manning -Make Every Town Square In America (And The World) A Bradley Manning Square From Boston To Berkeley to Berlin-Join Us In Central Square, Cambridge, Ma. For A Stand-Out For Bradley- Wednesdays From 5:00-6:00 PM
 
 



Six Ways To Support Heroic Wikileaks Whistle-Blower Private Bradley Manning

*Sign the online petition at the Bradley Manning Support Network (for link go to http://www.bradleymanning.org/ ) addressed to the Secretary of the Army to drop all the charges and free Bradley Manning-1100 plus days are enough! Join the over 30,000 supporters in the United States and throughout the world clamoring for Bradley’s well-deserved freedom.

*Call (202) 685-2900-The military is pulling out all the stops to chill efforts to increase transparency in our government. Now, we’re asking you to join us to ensure we’re doing all we can to secure Bradley’s freedom as well as protection for future whistleblowers.

Major General Jeffery S. Buchanan is the Convening Authority for Bradley’s court martial, which means that he has the authority to decrease Bradley’s sentence, no matter what the judge decides.

 
Please help us reach all these important contacts: Adrienne Combs, Deputy Officer Public Affairs (202) 685-2900 adrienne.m.combs.civ@mail.mil- Col. Michelle Martin-Hing, Public Affairs Officer (202) 685-4899 michelle.l.martinhing.mil@mail.mil The Public Affairs Office fax #: 202-685-0706

Try e-mailing Maj. Gen. Buchanan at jeffrey.s.buchanan@us.army.mil

The Public Affairs Office is required to report up the chain of command the number of calls they receive on a particular issue, so please help us flood the office with support for whistleblower Bradley Manning today!

*Come to our stand-out in support of Private Bradley Manning in Central Square, Cambridge, Ma. (Corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Prospect Street near MBTA Redline station) every Wednesday between 5-6 PM or start a stand-out in your town.

*Contribute to the Bradley Manning Defense Fund- now that the trial has started funds are urgently needed! The hard fact of the American legal system is the more funds available the better the defense, especially in political prisoner cases like Bradley’s.  The government has unlimited financial and personnel resources to prosecute Bradley. And has used them. So help out with whatever you can spare. For link go to http://www.bradleymanning.org/

*Call (Comments”202-456-1111), write The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20500, e-mail-(http://www.whitehouse.gov’contact/submitquestions-and comments) the White House to demand President Obama pardon Bradley Manning.

*Write letters of solidarity to Bradley Manning while he is being tried. Bradley’s mailing address: Commander, HHC, USAG, Attn: PFC Bradley Manning, 239 Sheridan Avenue, Bldg. 417, JBM-HH, VA 22211. Bradley Manning cannot receive stamps or money in any form. Photos must be on copy paper. Along with “contraband,” “inflammatory material” is not allowed. Six page maximum. Mail sent to the above address is forwarded to Bradley.    
Six Ways To Support Heroic Wikileaks Whistle-Blower Private Bradley Manning
 





*Sign the online petition at the Bradley Manning Support Network (for link go to http://www.bradleymanning.org/ ) addressed to the Secretary of the Army to drop all the charges and free Bradley Manning-1100 plus days are enough! Join the over 30,000 supporters in the United States and throughout the world clamoring for Bradley’s well-deserved freedom.

*Call (202) 685-2900- Major General Jeffery S. Buchanan is the Convening Authority for Bradley’s court martial, which means that he has the authority to decrease Bradley’s sentence, no matter what the judge decides. Ask General Buchanan to use his authority to reduce Bradley’s sentence when it is handed down by Judge Lind.

Please help us reach all these important contacts: Adrienne Combs, Deputy Officer Public Affairs (202) 685-2900 adrienne.m.combs.civ@mail.mil- Col. Michelle Martin-Hing, Public Affairs Officer (202) 685-4899 michelle.l.martinhing.mil@mail.mil The Public Affairs Office fax #: 202-685-0706

Try e-mailing Maj. Gen. Buchanan at jeffrey.s.buchanan@us.army.mil

The Public Affairs Office is required to report up the chain of command the number of calls they receive on a particular issue, so please help us flood the office with support for whistleblower Bradley Manning today!

*Come to our stand-out in support of Private Bradley Manning in Central Square, Cambridge, Ma. (Corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Prospect Street near MBTA Redline station) every Wednesday between 5:00-6:00 PM.

*Contribute to the Bradley Manning Defense Fund- now that the trial has started funds are urgently needed! The hard fact of the American legal system is the more funds available the better the defense, especially in political prisoner cases like Bradley’s.  The government has unlimited financial and personnel resources to prosecute Bradley. And has used them. So help out with whatever you can spare. For link go to http://www.bradleymanning.org/

*Call (Comments”202-456-1111), write The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20500, e-mail-(http://www.whitehouse.gov’contact/submitquestions-and comments) to demand that President Obama use his constitutional power under Article II, Section II to pardon Bradley Manning now.

*Write letters of solidarity to Bradley Manning while he is being tried. Bradley’s mailing address: Commander, HHC, USAG, Attn: PFC Bradley Manning, 239 Sheridan Avenue, Bldg. 417, JBM-HH, VA 22211. Bradley Manning cannot receive stamps or money in any form. Photos must be on copy paper. Along with “contraband,” “inflammatory material” is not allowed. Six page maximum. Mail sent to the above address is forwarded to Bradley.    

FromThe Marxist Archives-Bolshevik Policy on Self-Determination

Workers Vanguard No. 919
29 August 2008


LENIN

                                        Bolshevik Policy on Self-Deter-
TROTSKY
mination

(Quote of the Week)

Following the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and the outbreak of the Civil War, the social-democratic Mensheviks set up an “independent” bourgeois state in Georgia under the aegis of first German and then British imperialism. Bloodily suppressing the Georgian Bolsheviks, the Mensheviks used “independence” as a smokescreen for collaboration with the imperialists in their drive to overthrow Soviet rule in Russia and assist the counterrevolutionary White armies. Entering Georgia in early 1921 in defense of the revolution, the Red Army rapidly swept away the discredited Mensheviks and their imperialist patrons. As laid out by Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky in his 1922 work, Between Red and White, Soviet power laid the basis for transcending interethnic conflicts in the Caucasus.

We do not only recognise, but we also give full support to the principle of self-determination, wherever it is directed against feudal, capitalist and imperialist states. But wherever the fiction of self-determination, in the hands of the bourgeoisie, becomes a weapon directed against the proletarian revolution, we have no occasion to treat this fiction differently from the other “principles” of democracy perverted by capitalism….

The epoch of Tsarism was characterised by barbarous nationalist pogroms in the Caucasus, where the Armenian-Tartar butcheries were periodical events. Those sanguinary outbursts under the iron rule of Tsarism were the expression of centuries of internecine struggles of the Trans-Caucasian peoples.

The epoch of so-called democracy gave to the nationalist struggle a much more pronounced and organised character. In the beginning nationalist armies were formed, which were hostile to each other, and which often attacked each other. The attempt to create a bourgeois federal democratic Trans-Caucasian Republic proved a dismal failure. The Federation fell to pieces five weeks after its inception. A few months later the “democratic” neighbours were quite openly at war with each other. This fact alone settles the question: for if democracy was as incapable as Tsarism of creating conditions for a peaceful cohabitation of the Trans-Caucasian peoples, it was evidently imperative to adopt other methods.

The Soviet power alone has established peace and national intercourse between them. At the elections to the Soviets, the Baku and Tiflis workers elect a Tartar, an Armenian, or a Georgian, irrespective of their nationality. In Trans-Caucasia, the Moslem, Armenian, Georgian, and Russian Red regiments live side by side. They are imbued with the conviction that they are one army, and no power on earth will make them move against one another. On the other hand, they will defend Soviet Trans-Caucasia against any and every external foe.

The national pacification of Trans-Caucasia, which has been achieved by the Soviet revolution, is in itself a fact of enormous political and cultural significance. In it is expressed a real live internationalism, which we can safely put against the empty pacifist discourses of the heroes of the Second International, which are but a supplement to the chauvinist practices of its national sections.

—Leon Trotsky, Between Red and White (1922)

*********

Leon Trotsky

Terrorism and Communism


Foreword

By Max Bedact



In a land where “democracy” is so deeply entrenched as in our United States of America it may seem futile to try to make friends for a dictatorship, by a close comparison of the principles of the two – Dictatorship versus Democracy. But then, confiding in the inviting gesture of the Goddess of Liberty many of our friends and fellow citizens have tested that sacred principle of democracy, freedom of speech, a little too freely – and landed in the penitentiary for it. Others again, relying on the not less sacred principle of democracy, freedom of assembly, have come in unpleasant Contact with a substantial stick of hardwood, wielded by an unwieldly guardian of the law, and awoke from the immediate effects of this collision in some jail. Again others, leaning a little too heavily against the democratic principle of freedom of press broke down that pasteboard pillar of democracy, and incidentally into prison.
Looking at this side of the bright shining medal of our beloved democracy it seems that there is not the slightest bit of difference between the democracy of capitalist America and the dictatorship of Soviet Russia. But there is a great difference. The dictatorship in Russia is bold and upright class rule, which has as its ultimate object the abolition of all class rule and all dictatorships. Our democracy, on the other hand, is a Pecksniffian Dictatorship, is hypocrisy incarnate, promising all liberty in phrases, but in reality even penalizing free thinking, consistently working only for one object: to perpetuate the rule of the capitalist class, the capitalist dictatorship.
“Dictatorship versus Democracy” is, therefore, enough of an open question even in our own country to deserve some consideration. To give food for thought on this subject is the object of the publication of Trotsky’s book.
This book is an answer to a book by Karl Kautsky, Terrorism and Communism. It is polemical in character. Polemical writings are, as a rule, only thoroughly understood if one reads both sides of the question. But even if we could not take for granted that the proletarian reader is fully familiar with the question at issue we could not conscientiously advise a worker to get Kautsky’s book. It is really asking our readers to undertake the superhuman task of reading a book which in the guise of a scientific treatise is foully hitting him below the belt, and then expect him to pay two dollars for it in the bargain.
Anyhow, to read Kautsky’s book is an ordeal for any revolutionist. Kautsky, in his book, tries to prove that the humanitarian instincts of the masses must defeat any attempt to overpower and suppress the bourgeoisie by terrorist means. But to read his book must kill in the proletarian reader the last remnants of those instincts on which Kautsky’s hope for the safety of the bourgeoisie is based. There would even not be enough of those instincts left to save Kautsky from the utter contempt of the proletarian masses, a fate he so richly deserves.
Mr. Kautsky was once the foremost exponent of Marxism. Many of those fighting to-day in the front ranks of the proletarian army revered Kautsky as their teacher. But even in his most glorious days as a Marxist his was the musty pedantry of the German professor, which was hardly ever penetrated by a live spark of revolutionary spirit. Still, the Russian revolution of 1905 found a friend in him. That revolution did not commit the unpardonable sin of being successful. But when the tornado of the first victorious proletarian revolution swept over Russia and destroyed in its fury some of the tormentors and exploiters of the working class – then Kautsky’s “humanitarianism” killed the last remnant of revolutionary spirit and instinct in him and left only a pitiful wreck of an apologist for capitalism, that was once Kautsky, the Marxist.
July, 1914. The echoes of the shots fired in Sarajewo [Sarajevo, now part of Bosnia – Transcriber] threaten to set the world in flames. Will it come, the seeming inevitable? No ! – A thousand times no! Had not the forces of a future order, had not the International of Labor – the Second International – solemnly declared in 1907 in Stuttgart, in 1911 in Copenhagen and in 1912 in Basel: “We will fight war by all means at our disposal. Let the exploiters start a war. It will begin as a war of capitalist governments against each other; it will end – it must end – as a war of the working class of the world against world capitalism; it must end in the proletarian revolution.” We, the socialists of the world, comrades from England and Russia, from America and Germany, from France and Austria; we comrades from all over the world, had solemnly promised ourselves: “War against war” We had promised ourselves and our cause to answer the call of capitalism for a world war with a call on the proletariat for a world revolution.
Days passed. July disappeared in the ocean of time. The first days of August brought the booming of the cannon to our ears, messengers of the grim reality of war. And then the news of the collapse of the Second International; reports of betrayal by the socialists; betrayal in London and Vienna; betrayal in Berlin and Brussels; betrayal in Paris; betrayal everywhere. What would Kautsky say to this rank betrayal, Kautsky, the foremost disciple of Marx, Kautsky the foremost theoretician of the Second International? Will he at least speak up? He did not speak up. Commenting on the betrayal he wrote in Die Neue Zeit: “Die Kritik der Waffen hat eingesetzt; jetzt hat die Waffe der Kritik zu schweigen.” [The arbitrament of arms is on; now the weapon of criticism must rest.] With this one sentence Kautsky replaced Marxism as the basis of his science with rank and undisguised hypocrisy. From then on although trying to retain the toga of a Marxist scholar on his shoulders, with thousands of “if’s” and “when’s”’ and “but’s” he became the apologist for the betrayal of the German Social Democracy, and the betrayal of the Second International.
It is true that his “if’s” and “when’s” and “but’s” did not satisfy the Executive Committee of the Social Democratic Party. They hoped for a victory of the imperial army and wanted to secure a full and unmitigated share of the glory of “His Majesty’s” victory. That is why they did not appreciate Kautsky’s excellent service. So they helped the renegade to a cheap martyrdom by removing him from the editorship of Die Neue Zeit. After 1918 it may have dawned upon Scheidemann and Ebert how much better Kautsky served the capitalist cause by couching his betrayal in words that did not lose him outright all the confidence of the proletariat. And Kautsky himself is now exhausting every effort to prove to Noske and Scheidemann how cruelly he was mistreated and how well he deserves to be taken back to their bosom.
Kautsky’s book Terrorism and Communism is dictated by hatred of the Russian revolution. It is influenced by fear of a like revolution in Germany. It is written with tears for the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie and its pseudo-”socialist” henchmen who have been sacrificed on the altar of revolution by the proletarian dictatorship in Russia. Kautsky prefers to sacrifice the revolution and the revolutionists on the altar of “humanitarianism.” The author of Ethics and the Materialist Conception of History knows – must know – that humanitarianism under capitalism is capitalist humanitarianism. This humanitarianism mints gold out of the bones, the blood, the health and the suffering of the whole working class while it sheds tears about an individual case of cruelty to one human being. This humanitarianism punishes murder with death and beats to death the pacifist who protests against war as an act of mass murder. Under the cloak of “humanitarian instincts”’ Kautsky only hides the enemy of the proletarian revolution. The question at issue is not terrorism. It is the dictatorship; it is revolution itself. If the Russian proletariat was justified in taking over power it was in duty bound to use all means necessary to keep it. If it is a crime for them to use terrorist means then it was a crime to take a power which they could maintain only by terrorist means. And that is really Kautsky’s point. The crime of the Bolsheviki is that they took power. If Kautsky were a mere sentimentalist and yet a revolutionist he could shed tears over the unwillingness of the bourgeoisie to give up power without a struggle. But not being a revolutionist he condemns the proletariat for having taken and maintained power by the only means possible, by force. Kautsky would much prefer to shed crocodile tears over tens of thousands of proletarian revolutionists slaughtered by a successful counter-revolution. He scorns the Russian Communists because they robbed him of the opportunity to parade his petit bourgeois and consequently pro-capitalist “humanitarian’” sentiments in a pro-revolutionary cloak. But he must parade them at any cost. So he parades them without disguise as a mourner for the suppressed bourgeoisie in Russia.
Trotsky’s answer to Kautsky is not only one side of a controversy. It is one of the literary fruits of the revolution itself. It breathes the breath of revolution. It conquers the gray scholastic theory of the renegade with the irresistible weapon of the revolutionary experience of the Russian proletariat. It refuses to shed tears over the victims of Gallifet and shows what alone saved the Russian revolution from the Russian Gallifets, the Kolchaks, Wrangels, etc.
Trotsky’s book is not only an answer to Karl Kautsky; it is an answer to the thousands of Kautskys in the socialist movement the world over who want the proletariat to drown the memory of seas of proletarian blood shed by their treachery in an ocean of tears shed for the suppressed bourgeoisie of Russia.
Trotsky’s book is one of the most effective weapons in the literary arsenal of the revolutionary proletariat in its fight against the social traitors for leadership of the proletarian masses.

Leon Trotsky

Terrorism and Communism


Foreword

By Max Bedact



In a land where “democracy” is so deeply entrenched as in our United States of America it may seem futile to try to make friends for a dictatorship, by a close comparison of the principles of the two – Dictatorship versus Democracy. But then, confiding in the inviting gesture of the Goddess of Liberty many of our friends and fellow citizens have tested that sacred principle of democracy, freedom of speech, a little too freely – and landed in the penitentiary for it. Others again, relying on the not less sacred principle of democracy, freedom of assembly, have come in unpleasant Contact with a substantial stick of hardwood, wielded by an unwieldly guardian of the law, and awoke from the immediate effects of this collision in some jail. Again others, leaning a little too heavily against the democratic principle of freedom of press broke down that pasteboard pillar of democracy, and incidentally into prison.
Looking at this side of the bright shining medal of our beloved democracy it seems that there is not the slightest bit of difference between the democracy of capitalist America and the dictatorship of Soviet Russia. But there is a great difference. The dictatorship in Russia is bold and upright class rule, which has as its ultimate object the abolition of all class rule and all dictatorships. Our democracy, on the other hand, is a Pecksniffian Dictatorship, is hypocrisy incarnate, promising all liberty in phrases, but in reality even penalizing free thinking, consistently working only for one object: to perpetuate the rule of the capitalist class, the capitalist dictatorship.
“Dictatorship versus Democracy” is, therefore, enough of an open question even in our own country to deserve some consideration. To give food for thought on this subject is the object of the publication of Trotsky’s book.
This book is an answer to a book by Karl Kautsky, Terrorism and Communism. It is polemical in character. Polemical writings are, as a rule, only thoroughly understood if one reads both sides of the question. But even if we could not take for granted that the proletarian reader is fully familiar with the question at issue we could not conscientiously advise a worker to get Kautsky’s book. It is really asking our readers to undertake the superhuman task of reading a book which in the guise of a scientific treatise is foully hitting him below the belt, and then expect him to pay two dollars for it in the bargain.
Anyhow, to read Kautsky’s book is an ordeal for any revolutionist. Kautsky, in his book, tries to prove that the humanitarian instincts of the masses must defeat any attempt to overpower and suppress the bourgeoisie by terrorist means. But to read his book must kill in the proletarian reader the last remnants of those instincts on which Kautsky’s hope for the safety of the bourgeoisie is based. There would even not be enough of those instincts left to save Kautsky from the utter contempt of the proletarian masses, a fate he so richly deserves.
Mr. Kautsky was once the foremost exponent of Marxism. Many of those fighting to-day in the front ranks of the proletarian army revered Kautsky as their teacher. But even in his most glorious days as a Marxist his was the musty pedantry of the German professor, which was hardly ever penetrated by a live spark of revolutionary spirit. Still, the Russian revolution of 1905 found a friend in him. That revolution did not commit the unpardonable sin of being successful. But when the tornado of the first victorious proletarian revolution swept over Russia and destroyed in its fury some of the tormentors and exploiters of the working class – then Kautsky’s “humanitarianism” killed the last remnant of revolutionary spirit and instinct in him and left only a pitiful wreck of an apologist for capitalism, that was once Kautsky, the Marxist.
July, 1914. The echoes of the shots fired in Sarajewo [Sarajevo, now part of Bosnia – Transcriber] threaten to set the world in flames. Will it come, the seeming inevitable? No ! – A thousand times no! Had not the forces of a future order, had not the International of Labor – the Second International – solemnly declared in 1907 in Stuttgart, in 1911 in Copenhagen and in 1912 in Basel: “We will fight war by all means at our disposal. Let the exploiters start a war. It will begin as a war of capitalist governments against each other; it will end – it must end – as a war of the working class of the world against world capitalism; it must end in the proletarian revolution.” We, the socialists of the world, comrades from England and Russia, from America and Germany, from France and Austria; we comrades from all over the world, had solemnly promised ourselves: “War against war” We had promised ourselves and our cause to answer the call of capitalism for a world war with a call on the proletariat for a world revolution.
Days passed. July disappeared in the ocean of time. The first days of August brought the booming of the cannon to our ears, messengers of the grim reality of war. And then the news of the collapse of the Second International; reports of betrayal by the socialists; betrayal in London and Vienna; betrayal in Berlin and Brussels; betrayal in Paris; betrayal everywhere. What would Kautsky say to this rank betrayal, Kautsky, the foremost disciple of Marx, Kautsky the foremost theoretician of the Second International? Will he at least speak up? He did not speak up. Commenting on the betrayal he wrote in Die Neue Zeit: “Die Kritik der Waffen hat eingesetzt; jetzt hat die Waffe der Kritik zu schweigen.” [The arbitrament of arms is on; now the weapon of criticism must rest.] With this one sentence Kautsky replaced Marxism as the basis of his science with rank and undisguised hypocrisy. From then on although trying to retain the toga of a Marxist scholar on his shoulders, with thousands of “if’s” and “when’s”’ and “but’s” he became the apologist for the betrayal of the German Social Democracy, and the betrayal of the Second International.
It is true that his “if’s” and “when’s” and “but’s” did not satisfy the Executive Committee of the Social Democratic Party. They hoped for a victory of the imperial army and wanted to secure a full and unmitigated share of the glory of “His Majesty’s” victory. That is why they did not appreciate Kautsky’s excellent service. So they helped the renegade to a cheap martyrdom by removing him from the editorship of Die Neue Zeit. After 1918 it may have dawned upon Scheidemann and Ebert how much better Kautsky served the capitalist cause by couching his betrayal in words that did not lose him outright all the confidence of the proletariat. And Kautsky himself is now exhausting every effort to prove to Noske and Scheidemann how cruelly he was mistreated and how well he deserves to be taken back to their bosom.
Kautsky’s book Terrorism and Communism is dictated by hatred of the Russian revolution. It is influenced by fear of a like revolution in Germany. It is written with tears for the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie and its pseudo-”socialist” henchmen who have been sacrificed on the altar of revolution by the proletarian dictatorship in Russia. Kautsky prefers to sacrifice the revolution and the revolutionists on the altar of “humanitarianism.” The author of Ethics and the Materialist Conception of History knows – must know – that humanitarianism under capitalism is capitalist humanitarianism. This humanitarianism mints gold out of the bones, the blood, the health and the suffering of the whole working class while it sheds tears about an individual case of cruelty to one human being. This humanitarianism punishes murder with death and beats to death the pacifist who protests against war as an act of mass murder. Under the cloak of “humanitarian instincts”’ Kautsky only hides the enemy of the proletarian revolution. The question at issue is not terrorism. It is the dictatorship; it is revolution itself. If the Russian proletariat was justified in taking over power it was in duty bound to use all means necessary to keep it. If it is a crime for them to use terrorist means then it was a crime to take a power which they could maintain only by terrorist means. And that is really Kautsky’s point. The crime of the Bolsheviki is that they took power. If Kautsky were a mere sentimentalist and yet a revolutionist he could shed tears over the unwillingness of the bourgeoisie to give up power without a struggle. But not being a revolutionist he condemns the proletariat for having taken and maintained power by the only means possible, by force. Kautsky would much prefer to shed crocodile tears over tens of thousands of proletarian revolutionists slaughtered by a successful counter-revolution. He scorns the Russian Communists because they robbed him of the opportunity to parade his petit bourgeois and consequently pro-capitalist “humanitarian’” sentiments in a pro-revolutionary cloak. But he must parade them at any cost. So he parades them without disguise as a mourner for the suppressed bourgeoisie in Russia.
Trotsky’s answer to Kautsky is not only one side of a controversy. It is one of the literary fruits of the revolution itself. It breathes the breath of revolution. It conquers the gray scholastic theory of the renegade with the irresistible weapon of the revolutionary experience of the Russian proletariat. It refuses to shed tears over the victims of Gallifet and shows what alone saved the Russian revolution from the Russian Gallifets, the Kolchaks, Wrangels, etc.
Trotsky’s book is not only an answer to Karl Kautsky; it is an answer to the thousands of Kautskys in the socialist movement the world over who want the proletariat to drown the memory of seas of proletarian blood shed by their treachery in an ocean of tears shed for the suppressed bourgeoisie of Russia.
Trotsky’s book is one of the most effective weapons in the literary arsenal of the revolutionary proletariat in its fight against the social traitors for leadership of the proletarian masses.

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

***Out In The 1940s Be-Bop Crime Noir Night, Sort Of-“The Woman In The Window”-A Film Review
DVD Review

The Woman In The Window, starring Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, Dan Duryea, directed by Fritz Lang, 1944
Okay, okay I know this one is a crime noir by Fritz Lang and I will bow down, bow down profusely, over his use of interesting cinematic techniques, his photography, and his attention to detail that were his hallmark traits. That done though what is there to yell about in this noir? Sure there is a femme fatale, sort of, played here by Joan Bennett who whatever her ruby red-lipped, bedazzled charms for 1940s male audiences, or female audiences for that matter, does not compare, compare at all, to such femmes as Lauren Bacall, Rita Hayworth, or Jane Greer.

And sure there is a murder, sort of, committed by a learned New York professor of psychology, no less, played by, well played by, Edward G. Robinson, better known for his great 1930s gangsta movies. And there is a blackmailer, sort of, to complicate the plot, played by Dan Duryea. And there is a circling around the wagons to find the murderer by law enforcement, headed by clever, sneaky clever, Raymond Massey. That is natural for this genre. But didn’t I already, sort of, review this film before under the name Scarlet Street with this same cast of characters. Fritz Lang directed that one as well and provided us with his hallmark traits. And the crimes were real there, if not rightly solved.

Maybe I had better give a little plot to show what I mean. The good professor, the good middle-aged professor, (Edward G. Robinson) is having something like a mid-life crisis as his wife and kids leave town, New York town, to get away from the bustle of the city. On the way to his Mayfair swell club (on a 1940s professor’s salary?) he is entranced by a portrait of a beautiful woman in an art gallery window (hence the title of the film). Well one thing leads to another and while he is a little drunk after dinner he has what turns out to be an adventure, a theoretical adventure, which will have him facing the gallows before dawn. Seems our lady of the window (Ms. Bennett) appears in “real” life, is in distress due to some caddish lover, and is in need of our professor’s services as her gallant knight. In short, he kills, kills in self-defense really, the cad.

Of course, under the circumstances, they have try to commit the perfect crime by covering up, covering up as it turns out in such a poor way that any school boy could sent them to the electric chair to the big step-off on day one of the investigation and have time for lunch. To add to their cover-up distress woes, a blackmailer (Brother Duryea), a worldly-wise (at least in comparison to their amateurish antics) wants dough for his silence. Yah, I know, the suspension of disbelief part associated with any movie just doesn’t quite make it. And it doesn’t have to because at the end the good professor merely had just too much to drink. So back to the drawing board on this one, except now we get our noses rubbed into the theme song of this genre. Crime doesn’t pay, awake or asleep. Sorry Fritz, but you will always have Metropolis as your immortal work.